Those miserable women who work from early
morning to late night, condemned to a slavery worse than any we have
abolished; those hungry men who besiege the dock-gates for a day's
work, and have nothing in the whole world but a pair of hands; that
vast class which is separated from starvation by a single day--what
thought, interest, or care can they have for anything in the world but
the procuring of food? When the physical condition of English men and
women is worse, as Professor Huxley has declared it to be, than the
condition of naked savages in the Southern Seas, how can we look for
the virtues and the aspirations which belong essentially to the level
of comparative ease? Until we have mastered the problem of finding
steady work for all, with adequate wages and decent homes, we need not
look for Art in these lowest ranks. We have to do, therefore, not with
the very poor at all, but with the respectable poor--the families of
skilled mechanics, _employes_ in regular work, workmen in breweries,
ship-yards, and factories independent handicraftsmen, clerks,
cashiers, accountants, writers, small shopkeepers, and all that great
host which is perpetually occupied in increasing the wealth of the
country by labour which, at least, permits them to live in comfort.
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